The Second Great Sam & Max Race of 2010

I know, it's kinda lame to start this thread when the other race isn't even over yet, but I want to have plenty of time to prepare for this one.

Dates and Times

The race is set to take place from December 19th to January 15th. This race is four weeks long both to compensate for people's scheduling conflicts and so people can participate in both this and the concurrent Monkey Island race. If this is still not enough time, I'm willing to extend the races up to the entire two months of December and January if necessary.

Participants will set their own race times and race on their own schedule during the week. Approximate race times will be submitted to me so I can try and draw up a viewing schedule, as well as to make it easier for me to keep track of what times to document.

Broadcasting and Documenting

Documentation in the form of a post in this thread at the start and end of each episode is required. This is how I will record times and determine winners. If you wish (and if you'd like to make my life easier and have a more accurate time), you may time yourself and submit times along with your "finished" posts.

To clarify: If you do not post in this thread at the start and finish of each game, I cannot record your times.

In the past, a few of us broadcasted our races on Livestream, and it was a lot of fun, both for us and the people watching. However, this can cause sluggish performance in some games and can be difficult to make work with others, so if you prefer you can also provide updates on your progress over Twitter, post in this thread, or even come to one of the Livestreams and chat with everyone. What's fun about this is the added community element. If you choose to document, please provide a link to where you will be documenting and an estimated time (and time zone) that you will begin playing each game so I can add where and when to watch next to your name on the entrants list.

If anyone's interested in using Livestream and needs help, feel free to ask. Several of us have experience with it from previous races and will be happy to help.

Rules

If anyone has any ideas on how to improve these rules, let me know.

It is required that you play all sixteen episodes in the Telltale series in order. Sequence breaking is not allowed. You must play Culture Shock, Situation: Comedy, The Mole, The Mob, and The Meatball, Abe Lincoln Must Die!, Reality 2.0, Bright Side of the Moon, Ice Station Santa, Moai Better Blues, Night of the Raving Dead, Chariots of the Dogs, What's New Beelzebub?, The Penal Zone, The Tomb of Sammun-Mak, They Stole Max's Brain!, Beyond the Alley of the Dolls, and The City That Dares Not Sleep in that order (whew!).

Hit the Road is sort of a bonus. Due to its limited availability, participants only have to play if they have access to it and want to. It will not be factored into the final race time, but times on Hit the Road will be posted and compared separately. Hit the Road is to be played at default dialogue speed.

Hint settings are to be left on low.

Skipping dialogue is not allowed. Bypassing optional dialogue is allowed, but once a dialogue option is picked, you must let it play out uninterrupted. There is an exception for accidentally picking an identical dialogue section a second time.

The credits count as a cutscene. You're finished with a game when you return to the menu.

Saving the game during the race is allowed, and may be a good idea in case of a game crash. Loading saves made during the race is fine (but other than a crash, why would you want to?). If your game crashes and you haven't saved, er...I really have no idea what happens then.

The use of saves made outside the race is only allowed if the saves strictly take you to a previous point in the game. That is, you may not gain any new inventory or bypass any puzzles, even if you also lose inventory and puzzles become unsolved. If the save has the exact same inventory and solved puzzles or fewer, you may use it.

Since we're splitting the race apart, the winner will be determined by time. Time will be determined by forum posts made at the start and finish of each game.

Each player is allowed four do-overs. If you don't like one of your times, you may elect to try that game again. You may only redo each game once. Note that this only applies to completed runs. If you play a game over and do worse, your best time will be kept.

Surfin' the Highway (Fastest time on Hit the Road): Culture Cultist (Fastest Time on Culture Shock):Situation Under Control (Fastest Time on Situation: Comedy):Stick It To the Mob (Fastest Time on The Mole, the Mob and the Meatball):Expedient Election (Fastest time on Abe Lincoln Must Die):A Grip on Reality (Fastest Time on Reality 2.0):Always Look on the Bright Side (Fastest Time on Bright Side of the Moon):Merry Exorcist-mas (Fastest Time on Ice Station Santa):Welcome to Paradise (Fastest Time on Moai Better Blues):Zoom Zoom Zombie (Fastest Time on Night of the Raving Dead):Chariots of Fire (Fastest Time on Chariots of the Dogs):The Speed Devil (Fastest time on What's New, Beelzebub?):One Swift Stroke (Fastest time on The Penal Zone):Tomb Raider (Fastest time on The Tomb of Sammun-Mak):They Beat Max's Time! (Fastest Time on They Stole Max's Brain):Put your Toys Away (Fastest Time on Beyond the Alley of the Dolls):Max Destruction (Fastest Time on The City That Dares Not Sleep):World Savior (Fastest Time on Save the World):4th Dimension Traveler (Fastest Time on Beyond Time and Space):Speak of the Devil (Fastest Time on The Devil's Playhouse):Speedy Sam (Fastest Total Time):First to the Finish (First Person to Finish the Race):You Crack Me Up, Little Buddy (Closest Competitors):Bosco's Playhouse (Most Absent):

...and more?

After the Race

You didn't think the race was over when the last person finishes The City That Dares Not Sleep, did you? As sort of a celebration, seventeen of us will be choosing one episode and streaming it again after the race, this time for fun and taking suggestions from the audience. We'll be going through all the jokes we skipped over during the race, so it should be a good time!

Between now and the end of the race, everyone can sign up for one episode to play through for fun after the race. This is an audience participation sort of thing, so being able to broadcast on Livestream, Ustream, or a similar site is a must. Once we start getting closer to the end of the race, if all the slots aren't filled, I'll be opening it up for people to sign up for a second episode. For now, this is only open to race participants, to make sure nobody competing gets aced out. This is an event celebrating the end of the race, after all. I'll open it up to everyone else closer to race day.

We'll be determining dates and times after the race is over. The games will be played in order, so we'll be taking turns to decide when to play each of our games.